Phil Mushnick

Phil Mushnick

Weird But True

CBS reporters don’t seem to get the concept of winter

As long as our local TV newscasts have become slapstick comedies, they could better serve themselves and viewers by installing musical accompaniment options.

At the start of each, provide a choice: Press 1 for Benny Hill’s theme music, 2 for Looney Tunes, and 3, naturally, for the Three Stooges.

Such music has been the only thing missing while our locals produce, present and invite all to share with them another winter of “It’s cold and it might even snow! Run for your lives! — and stay tuned, right here” news reporting.

The latest winner — and it’s now always a close, highly competitive race — was WCBS Ch. 2 morning news. Conditions were cold and wet, causing slush and ice — and that’s the slippery kind of slush and ice. And, if you can imagine, in February!

We’ll pick it up with studio co-anchor Mary Calvi, about to throw it to field reporter Weijia Jiang, who was driving a car — trying to drive a car — on Staten Island while she alternately looked at the road and shot glances at the camera operator in the passenger seat.

Ch. 2 proudly and generously refers to this setup as “Mobile 2.”

Calvi, having noted that conditions are dangerous, introduced Jiang as “trying to maneuver around all these problems.”
Stop right there. That’s one way to look at it. The other way was to believe your eyes, to deal with the more self-evident — she and Ch. 2 apparently were trying to create even more problems!

What Jiang reported while she needlessly drove on — and apparently sought out — dangerously iced roads on SI could have just as easily and far more sensibly been reported from the studio: “Be very, very careful if you’re driving or even walking!”

There was nothing more that Mobile 2, with at least two passengers aboard, could have presented. It more easily could have presented an accident than prevented one!

And if the driver’s attention is divided as a matter of pre-plan, it’s not an accident; it’s a crash, a matter of designed negligence!

Yet Ch. 2’s message remained: Unless it’s absolutely necessary, don’t drive!

I was raised on Staten Island. In fact, I’m a third-generation Staten Islander (my ancestors came over on the ferry).

If Ch. 2’s Mobile 2 wanted to present or return with some really strong footage from SI — if the footage and/or occupants survived — I’d have sent them up on Todt Hill, and told them to make one of those hairpins at 35 mph on a wet road. Even in August!

Now there would’ve been some cautionary news footage!

The next time Mobile 2 is dispatched to drive straight into dangerous conditions in order to report clear and present dangerous conditions — to establish itself as one more moving target or assailant (either way, both needless and mindless) — its occupants should be instructed to first notify next of kin!

Meanwhile, I apologize for all these exclamation points. As literary devices they should only be occasionally useful, like kitchen devices, a carrot peeler, for example.

But our local newscasts have become preposterously empty-headed, beyond the outer limits of absurdity. Mere periods don’t do it justice!


Go to the head of the crass: The coarsening of America, as a TV specialty, marches on. Advance to the rear!

The Investigation Discovery channel, in conjunction with Valentine’s Day, hired Wendy Williams to host “Forget You Week,” shows about the extreme revenges taken against ex-mates by dumped lovers.

So as to be very clear, Discovery enlarged and bolded the “F” in forget and the “U” in you. Clever, eh?


Graphic of the Weak: Ch. 7’s Eyewitness News gave us, “Crews Continue Pothole Patrol In All Five Buroughs.”